I think a good protocol however is key for adoption. Many a good idea has died an early death because the implementation of it was, too complex, insufficiently robust, or poorly thought out for the future.

Only at the point of emission however...

I'd actually assume closer to 100km of coverage, 60 miles or so is a conservative estimate of coverage, in the prairies I would expect it to go much further - 500w of output on high band VHF goes quite quite far - I know how far the US NWS stations cover, and its much closer to 60+ miles.

This seems insane, particularly given the short notice period for the shutdown.